Download and try it. It's missing several icons, has a few misfeatures (especially how the magnifying glass works), but seems to be workable except for one major, major detail: It can't save as anything but .kra files (side note: KDE runs on *nix... why use a three letter extension?). AFAIK, nothing else reads them, so they can't be converted to/from any other format.

Does this mean that KOffice/KDE does not default to saving files with proper extensions? I would like to appeal to David and the KDE developers to reconsider this decision. Forcing too much choice on the user is not a good thing, but helping them by suggesting a default extension is a good idea and simplifies people's lives. Especially people from the Windows world.

> It was, after some discussion, decided that the best idea was to provide a checkbox in the Save File dialog box that allows the user to set wether or not to automatically add file extensions

Again, I hope there is a proper default. Don't force these kinds of decisions on users!

I've used KPresenter (KOffice 1.0) a bit, and it's been very stable. In KOffice 1.1, it should be even better.

The other parts of KOffice I've tried have not been stable enough for me. KWord crashes too easily (but that's perhaps just me trying out all the advanced layout functions), and KIllustrator is unstable as well. I've found StarOffice's drawing program a nice alternative, and for word processing I mainly use LyX and Psion Word (on my PDA).

Why KWord can't emmbed Qt metafiles, but only Windows ones ? Isn't it strange ? My program is running Qt and can only generate Qt metafiles. I suspect that those guys are paid by Microsoft this is why KWord is dependent on their proprietary formats.

Hmm... with Qt metafiles you probably mean a saved QPicture? It wouldn't be a problem to import them (as Qt would do *everything* for us), but I doubt that a lot of users would need that feature. Anyway, this should be quite easy to implement.

So you doubt that users need to embed their graphics into KOffice, because there is no other way to do it than QT metafiles ( so what is WMF for ? ) You can't generate WMF on Linux. ( GNOME programs can't generate QT metafiles but QT3 will have *.SVG format support, it just may be too bloated for everyday work, so two-format support would be best ). It is a natural complement to pixmap embedding. I personally think that users need more QTmeta/SVG than WMF.

So much hard work has gone into KOffice. How about setting a new standard for posting online and make a little rule that when posting something negative, find something else positive to go along with it.

Your life Karma would improve no end. You might even find yourself smiling ... wow!! ;-)

What about applying to help out ? That would do much better than just saying it sucks :) and finally, with your help and time investment, it won't suck anymore in a little time you have been working on it and hence, you have solved 3 problems at once:

a) you don't have to post KChart sucks again :)
b) you take other users the possibility to post it sucks
c) you are proud of what you did and a happy KChart user.

Ah, and most importantly, you're a part of this *great* community who invests most of their free time into the KDE project and making it so much fun to work with people around the world. It is a friendly place where we are, so feel free to join.

Okay, I give up. Where is there information about koscript? Where is the language even mentioned? What can it do? What *does* it do? Google and guesses have not helped... anybody know where information about this application in this release can be found?

KOScript is a stripped down version of KScript and both of them reside in koffice/lib/koscript and koffice/lib/kscript. In these directories you can also find a lot of examples and some documentation. Basically it looks like a mixture of Python, Perl, and C++ (no static types, object oriented, including multiple inheritence, natice support for signals and slots,...). Please check koffice/lib/kscript/Manual.

However, if you just want to script your KOffice applications I'd rather use the DCOP interface. Within KOffice koscript is used in KSpread only.

KOScript was introduced when DCOP was not yet present. Now that we have DCOP, KOffice apps (and all other DCOP-enabled KDE applications btw) can be scripted with every programming and scripting language with a DCOP binding.

These currently include Java, Perl (?) and Python. Please correct me if I am missing some.

This release of kword is MUCH better than ever before. Finally, I can layout more than one frame on the page, connect them and acutally run text through them and around them without it crashing on me. While, I'm sure it will still crash (it's a beta), it is already much better than before!

If it gets really stable I may have to use it all the time
(provided the interface get's cleaned up sum and it gets more features - comes with time.)

The KOffice 1.1 and KDE 2.2 teams have both been working at an amazing rate and have done great things with these two projects. Remember most of the people doing this work don't see any material compensation for their efforts. Give all of these people a hand, they truly deserve it for the spectacular work that's been accomplished. I for one can't say enough good things to truly show my gratitude. If you get a chance, drop them a line and say thanks. KDE is poised to amaze the desktop world in how great Open Source projects can develop just like Apache was for the web server. Thanks guys.

Very much so! In addition, kudos to the other Open Source teams that KDE wouldn't be possible or at it's current incredible state without : XFree86, Ghostscript, the GNU C++ compiler and tools, the Linux and BSD kernel developers, the distro and theKompany people, and everybody else who's lended a hand.

Heya guys, why don't you just join ? :) Thanks for the thanks though, but feel invited to participate as well. Please come and join us on irc.kde.org on #kde and step right in, there's still a lot to do and many ideas only come with new people :) Admit it, you always wanted to be a KDE developer ! :))

At first Kivio is avalaible. It seems performing, however I have some difficulties to find some features (anchor a link between two shapes... (P.-S. : yes, I succeed...)), because I am accustomed to ABC Flowcharter and because there is no documentation.

In Kword, I am very glad to see that it is possible to easily insert a picture, move it, change the size... The usage of the right mouse is only available in the edges of the frame and it would be better to be avalaible too inside. And in the "around text" of the frame property there are 3 options, and the 4th (text all around) would be pretty...

In KSpread, I see that the sum is now showed in the status bar. Alas - for me it is very essential - the usage of the tab key is bad : it has to go from a cell to the following (like in Excel or Gnumeric). Also important, it is not possible to have an auto-size of the hight of a line when text goes to line automatically in some cells of the line (it is also a lack of my version of Gnumeric).

And, of course, import and export are important, and it is better than the beta2...

> > And in the "around text" of the frame property there are 3 options, and the 4th (text all around) would be pretty...

> What's "text all around" ?

For example a page full of text and in the middle a little picture (without text on it, only around).

There are 3 possibilities :
1 text on the picture and around
2 text around the picture excepted on the left (or the right if picture is on the left)
3 text above and below the picture (no text in right and left)

And 4 would be ;
text around the picture (but not inside, as 1)

Of course, some other managements are possible :
- 2 --> 2a and 2b (no text on left, no text on right)
- choose the width of the blank zone (between the picture and the around text), on the top, bottom, left, right

I'm currently working on a presentation on plasma simulation. As we have KDE2 installed at the University I thought that I'd give KOffice a try when making my slides using KIllustrator / KPresenter.

Trying to import my plots (made with xmgr) I was very surprised to see that the only vector file format supported is WINDOWS WMF! This would not be a big problem for a WINDOWS program, but most other UNIX program tend to export EPS. Not even my favourite drawing/sketching/flowcharting program "Dia" exports to WMF!

(Note: I'm not using the latest version of KOffice - maybe EPS support is already included?)

I know that neither xmgr nor Dia are KDE programs, but I really think that it is more important for the KDE project to keep compatibility with the rest of the Unix world than trying to be smooth and easy for ex-Windows users!

In the end, I used good old Klyx to combine a few plots. Not the best program for presentations. But - in my opinion the very technical-report-writing-program for any platform ever. It's really easy to use when writing a lot of math, and it produces beatiful documents that look *the right way* (thanks to LaTeX).

So will there ever be a KDE2 Klyx version?

Or will KOffice become as good as KLyx/LaTeX when it comes to math and layout intelligence?

KOffice Beta 3 is looking fine and the filters work very well for foreign formats, but to my shock, after upgrading I could not read my native files anymore! I have lots of KWord and KSpread files saved on KOffice Beta2 that I can not open anymore. I'm using KDE 2.2alpha2 on Madrake8. Can someone help?

Yes, that's pretty strange and very frustrating. I'm sending, in a text file attached to this message, a copy of the console messages generated when opening Kword and trying to read a native format file saved by my previous KOffice installation.

I feel difficult to use Krayon, because it seems impossible to do quickly something very simple :
1. load a jpg (or png, or...)
2. modify it
3. save it

1. About loading, the (little) difficulty is only for the first time to find the command import in the menu Image, so not use the command "Open". I do not try to associate .jpg and Krayon, so that the .jpg will be open in Krayon by clicking on it, I hope it's good...

2. About modifying, the functions are today limited, but it is going to grow later...

3. The difficulty, for me, is here : it seems now impossible to save quickly (using a command/button/shortcut) the .jpg file. By using "save" or "export", a dialog box is opened, and it is too tiring for this beginning of summer, and later too...

More generally, I think that for any KOffice program, it would be fine to save quickly the file in its original format, excepted a structural modification, like adding a layer...

And if the "structural modification" is not easy to manage, perhaps only add a quick advertising needing to click on OK, something like : "You are going to save in a format that may impoverish the content of your work. Do you want it ?", so that it is saved with only a double click...